Month: December 2008

I started taking apart the rear bumpers, so I can eventually blast and paint the parts that are painted rather than chromed. The bolts holding them together are frozen solid with rust, which is odd because they don’t look especially rusty from the outside. I got one side apart, but the other will need one or both bolts cut, and the stumps of the bolts will have to be pressed out of the bumper bars.

For the hell of it, I decided to install the battery, hook up the temporary gas tank (a quart can), and start up the engine. I haven’t done that since early last summer. It started and ran fine, and I drove up and down the driveway a couple of times. Since the car has no seats at the moment, I sat on a box.

A few days ago I tried one more time to open the last shock. I heaved on the wrench so hard that part of the shock housing cracked. Oh well…

Then I tried to straighten one of the shock arms that was badly bent. In my press, I got it bent back to almost its original shape, and it cracked. At least the other three arms are fine…

I also cleaned a few remaining bits of the shock links. Now I can but all the shock stuff back up in the attic for another year or two.